Something suddenly leaped from the surface of the lake. Although we were on the assault boat and prepared for contingencies, we never anticipated this; everyone immediately gripped their entrenching tools and raised their flashlights.

Several beams of light swept across the air. Following the others, I looked up. If I hadn't looked, the whole affair would have vanished, but seeing it, I was overcome with a mixture of shock and wonder. My mouth fell open and stayed that way for a long moment. The shock stemmed from the fact that the thing which had shot four or five meters out of the lake was a fish. A fish leaping from the water is common, but this was no live creature; it was a three-meter-long dead fish, already beginning to rot and emitting a stench that filled the air. Several large holes gaped in its belly, and half of its head was missing, exposing the pale white skull beneath.

The strange part was that after leaving the water, the dead fish's corpse remained suspended in mid-air. Everyone was utterly bewildered. At that moment, two lacquered coffins drifted closer with the current, allowing us a clearer view. The rotting carcass of the fish was completely covered in countless enormous black flies. These flies were as large as fingernail caps, clinging tightly to the dead fish. Startled, they had bolted out of the water, enveloping the fish corpse. They buzzed in a chaotic swarm that refused to dissipate. Their massive bodies, saturated with accumulated decay and carrying phosphorescent compounds, fluttered in the air like faint, dim fireflies, resembling thousands of ghostly eyes blinking in and out of existence.

This type of black fly has a scientific name: Necrophagia domestica, or blow fly. Although its name includes "fly," it is actually a type of carrion maggot, specializing in feeding on decaying flesh. Sometimes, their presence can be noted at exposed, bone-littered burial grounds, but these creatures have peculiar habits and never touch the living; they pose no threat to living people.

Back when I was in Panjiayuan, I heard an old anecdote about these corpse worms. It was said that before the Liberation, there was a petty grave robber named Ma Wuzi. He regularly engaged in torchlight tomb raiding, usually sticking to smaller graves of landlords and wealthy families, digging up a few pieces of jewelry or silver dollars to trade for necessities. He never struck it rich and lived a hand-to-mouth existence.

This continued until one day, while digging in a mass grave area, Ma Wuzi accidentally discovered a Song Dynasty tomb chamber filled with valuables. Ma Wuzi, then in his thirties, had never seen so many grave goods. As a solitary thief, he couldn't possibly move everything. Knowing that discovery would invite disaster, he scooped up the most valuable gold, jewels, and jade, leaving the rest untouched, planning to return for salvage when he was desperate.

As he was leaving, he suddenly saw a corpse worm crawling out of a crack in the coffin. Ma Wuzi casually pinched it. At that moment, acting on some strange impulse he couldn't explain, he pulled out a piece of oiled paper—the kind used to wrap pork head meat—and wrapped the worm in it, stuffing the bundle into a brick crevice within the tomb chamber. Perhaps he intended to suffocate the creature to death.

Then, Ma Wuzi sealed the shaft and returned to town to convert the artifacts into wealth. He bought property, settled down, and married, eventually having a son. By the time his son was a teenager, both father and son had developed a gambling addiction. As the saying goes, even immortals lose when they gamble persistently, let alone these two mortals.

Gambling was like trying to fill a well with snow—the losses were endless, yet the craving never stopped. They gambled until they were destitute and heartbroken. Seeing only four walls left in his home, Ma Wuzi remembered the treasures still in the ancient tomb he had raided. He took his son back to steal more. After finding their way into the tomb, Ma Wuzi suddenly recalled the corpse worm he had hidden in the wall crevice over a decade ago, wondering if it had long since turned to dust. He searched the original spot and, indeed, found it. The oiled paper package was completely intact. Unwrapping it, he saw the worm was shriveled and flattened, almost paper-thin.

But the worm’s limbs and antennae still looked vividly alive. Driven by curiosity, he and his son brought it close to examine it, forgetting the taboos of grave robbing. When a living person breathes upon an unmoving dead thing, the yang energy interacts. The corpse worm suddenly stirred and bit Ma Wuzi’s finger. Ma Wuzi immediately foamed at the mouth and convulsed. Before his son could carry him home and summon a doctor, he was dead.

It is said that Ma Wuzi’s descendants later made a living in Beijing, working as assistants for Old Qiao Er in Liulichang. This account was told firsthand by him. In both Panjiayuan and Liulichang, the two major hubs for antiques, many people had heard the story. However, most dismissed it as fabricated gossip, merely something to entertain themselves over tea.

But I found the story rather plausible. If one hadn't personally experienced phenomena like "underwater eyes," corpse worms, or grave wax, they couldn't speak of such secrets known only to geomancers skilled in feng shui. Back in the Hundred Eyes Cave, I narrowly escaped being killed by a corpse worm myself. However, there are many kinds of corpse worms—"scuttle flies, carrion flies," and others fall into this category. Seeing a corpse worm near the "Ancient Tomb of the Immortal Village" was therefore not surprising. I just didn't know which type Ma Wuzi encountered. Different corpse worms have different habits; some prey on the corpse, while others feed on the living.

In the mass grave cavern before us, though teeming with insects and rodents, we hadn't expected the dead fish floating on the lake surface to attract carrion flies. This incident had caused a pointless scare. Just then, the dead fish overhead gave a violent shudder, and the swarm of carrion flies dispersed in a loud rush. The half-rotted fish fell into the water beside the lacquered coffin with a splash that sent water flying.

Fatty cursed a few times and swept the water with his shovel, driving away the flies that hadn't escaped far into the air. His force was considerable, causing the coffin beneath him to rock violently.

Professor Sun, being a terrible swimmer, was terrified of water. His face immediately changed color. He quickly grabbed the locking ring on the lacquered coffin to steady himself, shouting, "Slow down, slow down... You're going to tip the coffin over!"

Fatty turned back with a look of contempt. "Look how scared you are, Old Ninth. You must be afraid of eating wontons. But don't worry, Ninth Master, if we run into any legs dragging us in the water, Fatty will serve you up some broad-knife noodles."

I noticed the current in the underground lake shifting and quickly warned them to stop bickering and pay attention to the rapids ahead. No sooner had I spoken than the lacquered coffin, temporarily serving as our "assault boat," was hit by the current and began to lose control.

Fatty tossed a flare into the air. It illuminated a sheer cliff face slanting down at the end of the underground lake. The rock face was riddled with springs, scattered at varying heights. At the outlets of two large springs, carvings of coiled, old dragons stood guard. Two small waterfalls, like white silk ribbons, poured down from the dragon heads, appearing precisely like twin dragons emerging from the water. Between the two watery dragons, a peculiar structure resembling a quetai (a ceremonial tower) emerged, intricately carved with hundreds of beasts and birds—exotic creatures rarely seen in the human world, suffused with the mysterious aura of a primitive, shamanistic kingdom. A thought struck me: "Is this the tomb gate of the Ancient Tomb of King Wuyang?"

Beneath the towering gate structure, several stone doors stood ajar. The walls were laid with massive bricks, strongly resembling the yongdao (tomb passage) within the tomb. The gate was layered in three tiers. The bottom row of city gates was already half-submerged by the lake water. The downward rush of the underground water was extremely swift. As soon as the lacquered coffins floating on the surface neared, they were swept into the turbulent current.

I knew that Sun Jiuye and Yaomei’er couldn't swim. If they fell into the pitch-black, cold water, rescue might not be possible. Furthermore, the vermilion lacquered coffin wasn't a real boat; it could capsize with the slightest tilt. There was no possibility of riding the coffin into the chamber. I whistled sharply, signaling everyone to abandon ship and get ashore.

But at that moment, the lacquered coffins were carried by the rapids, their speed instantly accelerating. I felt the wind whistling past my ears. The two coffins spun on the water surface, bumping against each other before being sucked into the cavern beneath the quetai. By then, it was too late for anyone to jump into the water to escape. We had no choice but to treat our lives as forfeit, steel ourselves, and lie prone on the coffin lids, leaving fate to decide.

Amidst a chorus of screams, the vermilion lacquered coffins shot down the tomb passage for over twenty meters. In the wide, black yongdao, I couldn't discern the surroundings at all. I could hear the roaring water ahead, suggesting that the middle section of the passage had been submerged and waterlogged for years, causing a significant collapse—a large sinkhole. The water was flowing into a lower burial chamber. If the underground lake current had swept the coffin and its occupants down there, survival would be unlikely.

This thought flashed through my mind, and I hesitated no longer. I shouted to Sun Jiuye and Yaomei’er to prepare to jump off the coffin and into the water. By then, Shirley Yang, behind me, had already deployed her Flying Tiger Claws, hooking onto the arch stones of the passage ceiling. She wrapped her arms around my waist from behind. Our feet left the coffin; it was immediately swept by the current deep into the dark passage.

The underground water in the passage was waist-deep. Shirley Yang and I braced ourselves, hooking one hand into the crevices between the tomb bricks using the Flying Tiger Claws, and I urgently turned back to pull Professor Sun.

At that moment, the other lacquered coffin drifted past me. Unfortunately, the surge of water was too rapid. I missed my grasp. The three of them couldn't reach out in time either. They were swept past me, still clinging to the coffin lid. Shirley Yang and I both cried out, "Damn it!" Before the words faded, the three of them had plunged into the sinkhole where the passage had collapsed mid-section.

My vision went black, and I thought we were done for. I yelled for Fatty and the others, but all I heard was the deafening roar of the water. Even if someone answered, the sound would have been drowned out. Panic flared, but I quickly calmed down, realizing frantic worry was useless now. The priority was to descend immediately and search for survivors.

I held up my flashlight and surveyed the terrain. I surmised that the gate before the underground lake meant we had entered the main chamber area of the "Tomb of the Shifting Mountain Sorcerer King." The main hall and chambers were all inside this underground structure. The entire ancient tomb was built in a superimposed pattern of primary and secondary structures. Before the three levels of chambers, there should have been a sealed stone-inlaid passage. We had entered this area from the mass grave shaft, essentially "walking straight into the main hall," yet there was no sign of the "Immortal Village" here.

The immediate priority was searching for our companions; the location of the "Ancient Tomb of the Immortal Village" could wait. Shirley Yang and I waded forward, clinging to the tomb walls. We saw small, varied chambers off the passage on both sides, all empty except for the remnants of murals on the walls. Everything we saw depicted a scene of desolation after being thoroughly plundered by a horde of tomb robbers. The internal passages of the ancient tomb crisscrossed, and the vertical passages had numerous collapses—a major flaw in this superimposed tomb structure, which is why this layout was abandoned after the Tang Dynasty.

Because the current in the main passage was too strong to stand, we had to detour through the side chambers. We finally managed to circle around to the collapsed section mid-passage. The ground was a mix of collapsed bricks and mud, revealing a sinkhole several meters in diameter. It looked exactly like the result of a centuries-old robber's tunnel collapsing and flooding. Perhaps the Guanshan Taibao had dug a tunnel from below to bypass the tomb walls, and the tunnel had subsequently collapsed and flooded.

Below the collapsed tunnel was another chamber, its interior a ruin of fallen bricks and tilting walls, utterly chaotic. I looked down. The lower chamber was half-submerged in black water. The soil at the base of the tomb wasn't solid, and the infiltrating groundwater had seeped into the earth. I suddenly spotted a beam of light flickering on the water surface in a corner of the chamber. I focused my gaze and realized it was Fatty, shining his flashlight around.

Seeing he was unharmed, my suspended heart eased by half. I shouted to him, "Commander Wang, are you alright? Where are Ninth Master Sun and Yaomei’er?" But the sound of the falling water was extremely noisy; I could barely hear myself. Seeing the water level below was deep, I found a spot where the current was weaker and, with Shirley Yang in front and me following, rappelled down using the Flying Tiger Claws.

I reached Fatty's side and saw he was dazed, having scraped himself in a few places. Fortunately, he wore a climbing helmet, and his shoulders, elbows, and knees were protected by leather padding, so falling into the water didn't cause serious harm. I repeated my previous question.

Fatty shook his head hard. "Damn it, everything’s flashing stars in front of my eyes! The current in the passage was too fierce just now. Fatty intended to jump off the coffin, but that old man Ninth Master was so scared of the water he was practically pissing his pants, clinging to me for dear life. The jerk nearly knocked my head back into my skull! Yaomei’er and Ninth Master, those two landlubbers... they probably didn't dare let go of the coffin when they fell into the water. If they aren't in this chamber, then... they definitely drifted off with the lacquered coffin into the adjacent passage."

Seeing Fatty was fine, I estimated that Sun Jiuye and Yaomei’er wouldn't have suffered major harm either. However, I felt something deeply unsettling about the tomb's interior—a cold emptiness permeated by an ineffable, strange atmosphere. We had to find the others quickly before anything worse happened.

The water-filled chamber had doorways on all four sides. On one wall, there was a bizarre mural depicting a plump, expressionless woman holding a shriveled old man, the size of a baby's fist, in her arms. In haste, I couldn't decipher the legend in the painting, but it felt exceptionally sinister. A mere glance made me uneasy, forcing me to look away as much as possible.

On the wall with the mural, the largest arched tomb gate stood wide open. The foot-deep standing water slowly flowed into the opening. After falling into the water, the lacquered coffin most likely drifted into the passage behind that gate, as the other openings around it were relatively narrow. We shouted a few times near the chamber door, and after receiving no response, we switched on the headlamps mounted on our helmets, drew our defensive gear, and waded in.

The passage was perpetually waterlogged, with clear water lines etched onto the brick walls, covered in thick, dark-green moss. The air was heavy with oppressive humidity in the darkness. The visibility provided by our headlamps was extremely low. We walked a long distance past the sinkhole, and still, we couldn't see the end of the passage.

The unique structure and feng shui ley lines of the superimposed tomb meant that sound inside could only travel vertically, from the bottom upwards with the earth's energy. Standing in the pitch-black, cold passage, we could no longer hear the sound of the water in the chamber behind us, only the gentle lapping of the water. The silence around us was frightening. Worried about Sun Jiuye's safety, I grew increasingly anxious. Just as I was about to shout the names of the missing again, I noticed a faded, damaged mural about a meter above my head on the passage ceiling. It resembled the style of the mural in the chamber, depicting a woman whose expression was wooden, like a carved statue. She had opened her cherry-red mouth, extending her tongue, and sitting cross-legged on that bright red tongue was an old man whose appearance was ghostly and demonic, yet he was small, the size of a walnut.

In the passage covered with moss and sewage, this mural stood out jarringly. I stared directly at it and was genuinely shocked. Fatty, who was walking ahead, also spoke up: "Old Hu, why does this mural look so familiar? If this commander remembers correctly, we saw something like this in Longling, Shaanxi. You even said only Tang Dynasty landlords' wives were that corpulent..."

I felt the same and nodded, continuing to walk without stopping, asking Shirley Yang beside me if she found the mural exceptionally strange. She said it looked like a noblewoman from the Tang Dynasty.

Shirley Yang replied, "It's very sinister. The colors of the mural are new. The woman's clothing is clearly Tang style, but the old man on her tongue is simply... simply like a demon."

Shirley Yang believed these murals must date from the Tang Dynasty, making them incongruous with the historical context we expected. She hypothesized that perhaps Di Xian Fengshi Gu had stolen them from other ancient tombs and deliberately hidden them in the lowest level of this tomb for some unknown reason, warning me to be wary of traps in this section of the passage.

Hearing Shirley Yang use the Western term "demon" to describe the mural figures, I felt a familiar resonance. The word held no concrete image for me in my mind, but it seemed perfectly suited to describe the tiny "old man" on the tongue of the Tang noblewoman. That skinny, small elder had pointed ears and a hateful face, looking precisely like a vengeful spirit crawled out of the eighteenth level of hell.